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New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 9118, 15 October 1890, Page 2

From Milford Sound to Mount Cook, and from Mount Cook to Christchurch “en route” to Hokitika that is the destiny of the tourists of the future in the Middle Island. When there is unbroken communication right along this great line of travel, the tourist traffic will be big enough to prove the theory that our scenery is our best asset. At' present, however, there is not anything like unbroken communication. Milford Sound, for any connection it has with the rest of New Zealand by land, might as well be part of Nova Zembla so far as the tourists are concerned. The essentials of every lino of travel are the roadway and the accommodation. Make a road from Milford over to the two great lakes —Te Anau and Wakatipu, and you place the tourist in touch with the railway system and the coach roads. Ho can go by Queenstown, Arrow, and the Cardrona to Pembroke ; and thence by the Lindis Pass to Pukaki and the Hermitage ; and from there he can reach the railway system at Fairlie Creek. It is the grandest drive in New Zealand, almost in the world. Good hotels at Milford, Te Anau, and the head of the Wakatipu, would rapidly raise the tourist traffic attracted by the road into great annual bulk. The whole system of road and rail is ready for the traffic, with the exception of the road into Milford. That we are glad to see the Government has determined to put in hand at once. The first section will be made from the Sound to the Sutherland Falls, the lines to the two Lakes are explored, and the detailed surveys can be made while the work is being done on the first section. It is a beginning. The work will be done by prison labour, which has been strikingly successful at the fortifications at the four centres. It has been good for the forts, and what is more important, very good for the prisoners. The system of teaching trades in prison has broken down, because the prisoners for the most part are not of an. age to acquire the dexterity necessary to competition in the labour market in which they have to seek a living after the expiry of their sentences ; and on their side the prison authorities have not the appliances required for thorough teaching of any handicraft. Outdoor work, in fact, has proved the better reclaimer. The men will be sent down shortly, we understand, to Milford Sound, under a staff of warders, with a medical man in charge ; and. (they will live in movable huts now being made here. The project is creditable to the Government for its enterprise, and the humanitarian feeling that inspires it.

The Grand Duke Nicholas, whose loss of reason the cables have just chronicled, is best known as the Ooramander-in-Chief of the Russian Army of the Danube during the Busso-Turkish campaigns of 1877-78. He it was who had his head-quarters on the Pruth before the campaign ; he was in Bucharest early during the advance on the Danube ; he appeared before Plevna just after Krudener suffered that disastrous repulse in the first weeks of the war at the hands of Osman Pasha. Unable to prevent that intrepid commander from making the place impregnable, he sat down before it, detaching the army of the Czarwitch to ward off the attack of Meheraet Ali from the aide of Varna, and Gourko to hold the Shipka against Sulhnan. He it was who sent Skobeloff to capture Loftcha and brought him back to lead those famous desperate assaults on Plevna. He ordered the great flank march over the Balkan in midwinter, which drove the Turks out of the Shipka Pass; he directed the pursuit past Adrianople which Valentino Baker’s masterly strategy vainly tried to stem; and he was in command of the Russian lines outside of Constantinople when only the treaty of peace and the British fleet prevented his capture of the Sultan’s capital. As a commander he was recognised to be capable and sensible. General Todleben did the work of compelling the surrender of Plevna, but the credit of the whole campaign was always given to the Grand Duke. It might have been better conducted, it is true, but, on the whole, the work was very respectably done.

A correspondent 'writes to us anathematising the stenches on the KaiwharaHutt road. We wonder that correspondents do not write to the same effect every day. These things are a disgrace to the district, a disgrace to the people who cause them, and a disgrace to the authorities who permit them. A more glaring instance of neglect of public dnty there does not exist in all New Zealand. No one who has not travelled the road can have any. conception that such a thing is possible in this country of many laws. A great part of the food supply of Wellington passes through the atmosphere thus made deadly ; much milk comes that way ; invalids take the air in that direction ; people of all sorts and conditions of constitution pass and repass. All this traffic is secure in its trust in the law, of which there are several large books full. A more excellent, thorough-going, carefully detailed measure does not exist anywhere ; and there is the Common Law to fill up the corners. But if authorities are supine, timorous, neglectful, what is the use of laws 1

Ma Mitchelson has, with his usual brevity, thoroughly exhausted the subject of the San- Francisco Mail Service. Never —no never, under any circumstances will the Government give the contractors a single hour's extension of time. But that will not'prevent the contractor from steering cheerfully for Wellington if he has a mind to. Persuade him of the superior advantages of the capital city, which is the capital city because of the enormous superiority of its central geographical position, and the contractor will order his masters to burn a few tons more of coal and do without a single hour’s extension of time. Mr Mitchelson, as Postmaster-General—-and au Auckland member—will keep his word, and the mail steamers will come here, and save half a day or mere on the road to Sydney.